Sustainability Transformation Conference 2026

I was moderating the Sustainability Transformation Conference 2026 in Berlin all around the theme of “Living within Planetary Boundaries”. This years’ conference has been organized jointly by the German Environment Agency, the German Advisory Council on the Environment and the European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils Network.

We started the conference with the Facing the Facts session with Prof. Dr. Johan Rockström, Director at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and one of the leading and most renowned scientists in the fields of sustainability and climate change globally, Line Gordon, Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and Cecilie Fries, Senior Advisor at Concito. The scientific evidence is clear, we have now crossed seven of the nine planetary boundaries. During our panel we discussed the need to adapt communication of scientific evidence for a broader public, but in particular also for policy makers in order to effectively turn knowledge into concrete policy action.

During the Rethinking Strategies session with Dirk Messner, President of the German Environment Agency, Somya Joshi, Research Director at the Stockholm Environment Institute and Prof. Dr. Maarten Hajer, Professor for Urban Future at Utrecht University, we elaborated on the current political, societal and economic realities that we are facing and how to find strategies within these realities to drive the sustainability transformation forward. As Dirk Messner, the democratic dimension, is the most crucial one and we have not been able to convince majorities in society for such deep transformations.

As Philip Lambert, Advisor to the President of the European Commission, pointed out the European Union is struggling with the Green Deal, but trying to maintain it. The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has a clear commitment to the Green Deal, but certainly relies on political majorities to make things happen, and this is where we struggle especially in the context of most recent European elections.

Thanks a lot to all of our speakers and to the teams at UBA, SRU and EEAC for the good collaboration and for inviting me to moderate the STC this year again.